Sales Motivation….Continued
A motivated sales team has a clear understanding
of their territories, products, accounts, and
contacts. They can clearly visualize how to execute
an account plan and measure the progress. In
channel and distributor sales, model calculating
compensation can be challenging and timeconsuming. Clear hierarchy definitions with
product and sales rollup help in determining the
commissions much faster. It all comes down to
reliable information.
Have access to intelligent recommendations.
After years of experience, the most productive
salespeople learn how to capture customer
information diligently from all available sources
and proactively fine-tune their account plans. This
skill takes years to accomplish. Expedite the
process by leveraging machine learning, available
in modern data management platforms, that
monitors customer interactions, understands
customer profiles and preferences, uncovers new
relationships, and recommends next best action to
sales
executives.
With
such
guided
recommendations, the salesperson can execute on
plans more efficiently, and sales management can
ramp up sales teams faster. Every sales person
becomes more confident about the account tactics
and can make better data-driven decisions.
Close the loop with marketing. Sales need access
to marketing data, including customer’s product
and channel preferences and multichannel
interactions, to have relevant and productive
conversations with the client. Also, the information
gathered by sales in the field should become input
into marketing activities. Such information may
include customer address change, a request for a
content piece, or need for a channel subscription.
A closed-loop information flow is essential for sales
engagement and alignment with marketing.
Departmental silos and lack of collaboration
hamper motivation across all teams.
Beyond compensation, providing sales with
information and tools to be most effective is the
biggest motivator. They are competitive, they
desire to win, and they want to make their
customers successful. It all boils down to the
reliable data foundation that provides them with
timely and relevant information and a competitive
advantage. Given a choice between information
and money; a successful sales person will always
choose a good piece of information.
Ajay Khanna is the Vice President, Product Marketing
at Reltio and an enterprise applications expert. Prior to
joining Reltio he held senior positions at Veeva Systems,
Oracle and other software companies including KANA,
Progress and Amdocs. Ajay holds an MBA in marketing
and finance from Santa Clara University.
Strictly Marketing Magazine September/October 2016
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